This is my dream job, I think.: no, not skating or even sk8ing but being the record company suit who puts together compilations like this. You can see on these CDs the taxonomical confusion when a new genre is ‘spotted’ by the men upstairs, and some exec is told to get 40 tracks together by yesterday. “We’ve licensed Avril! 2 CDs of modern skate pop NOW, O crawling one!” So Cave-In and Reef (Reef!) and Run DMC and Busted all suddenly share disc space. It’s halfway between making a mixtape for some imagined mate, and being Simon Reynolds and giving birth to a new genre direct from your Zeus-like brow. Except unlike neurofunk et al. the Frankenstein styles birthed in record company labs are actually directly tested in the marketplace.
The only downside of the job (apart from being fired when it turns out that Sk8er Bois don’t like Tight Fit after all) is the disillusionment and ennui that set in when successful ‘genres’ are hit upon. The compilers of the very first I Wuv Them Eighties, Me compis would have had a grand old time but years of identical 2CD sets later and the parameters of 80s nostalgia are rigidly patrolled with little room for liveliness. It’s doubtful Sk8erpop will ever suffer the same fate but we should be prepared to enjoy this oddness while it lasts.